Trump is not an economic populist, he’s just playing one on TV.

December 7, 2016

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Donald Trump is a masterful con man, and his presidency will be a bait-and-switch of epic proportions. He will, on one hand, appeal to the populist temper of the time—as he did this week with his “thank you tour”—and with stunts, as he did with the Carrier deal or his series of tweets purporting to hold Boeing to account for overcharging the Air Force.

The switch comes in Washington, with what David Axelrod dubbed a “Monster’s Ball” of Wall Street and right-wing ideologues in the cabinet. Republican majorities in Congress will work to further rig the economy for the wealthy few.

Trump’s opening speech of his “thank you tour” in Ohio laid out the bait. While putting forth his “action plan to make America great,” Trump dished out nationalist and populist themes with a characteristic mix of racist signaling. Trump promised to put America first: “There is no global anthem. No global currency. No certificate of global citizenship. We pledge allegiance to one flag and that flag is the American flag. From now on it is going to be: America First,” Trump said. “Never anyone again will any other interests come before the interest of the American people. It is not going to happen again.”

Trump echoed Bernie Sanders with his focus on the “forgotten” American worker. Trump felt their pain, and indicted trade deficits and flight of manufacturing jobs. He promised good jobs. He will renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and take on China. He bragged about the Carrier deal, and pledged a 35 percent tariff on companies that offshore jobs and try to ship products back into the United States.

Like Sanders, Trump proposed a major plan to rebuild America, including “our inner cities.” His plan will have “two simple rules”: “Buy America” and “Hire America,” phrases that too many Democrats would choke on.

The conservative core of his program—corporate tax cuts, deregulation, reviving coal and oil, repealing Obamacare—is wrapped in this populist gauze.

The switch, of course, will take place in the suites of Washington where, instead of draining the swamp, he’s populating it with predators. Trump’s CEO council, which will advise him on taxes and regulation, is a classic gang of thieves. Steve Schwarzman, head of the Blackstone Group, and impassioned defender of the carried-interest tax-break scam, is the chairman of Trump’s group. (He famously compared the effort to roll back this obscene tax rip-off with Hitler’s invading Poland). It also includes Jamie Dimon, head of JPMorgan Chase, the bank with one of longest rap sheets coming out of the financial debacle. His bank paid over $38 billion in fines for various fraudulent schemes from 2008 to 2015, and still counting.

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Add Mary Barra, the CEO of General Motors, bailed out by the Obama administration, which managed to pay no federal taxes despite $7.7 billion in world earnings in 2015.

And there’s Doug McMillon, the CEO of Walmart, America’s largest and viciously anti-union employer, infamous for paying its workers so little that they are forced to depend on billions in taxpayer subsidies in everything from food stamps to low-wage housing assistance, while the six heirs of the founder have wealth equaling the combined fortunes of 40 percent of Americans.

After scorning Goldman Sachs on the campaign trail, Trump wants to hand the Treasury Department to a second-generation Goldman Sachs alum, Steven Mnuchin, whom Senator Elizabeth Warren dubbed the “Forest Gump of the financial crisis” because he seemed to be everywhere. Mnuchin profited at Goldman trading the collateralized mortgage-backed securities and debt swaps that helped blow up the economy, and then cleaned up after the crash by purchasing IndyBank and running one of the most fraudulent foreclosure mills in the country.

In interviews held simultaneous to Trump’s “thank you” tour, Mnuchin laid out the real agenda. “Our number-one priority is tax reform, the largest tax change since Reagan.”

The administration will push to lower corporate taxes to 15 percent, and give the companies that evaded taxes by stashing the money abroad a massive tax break. The rich will clean up with “middle-class tax reforms” that feature lower-top-end taxes and an end to the estate tax. Mnuchin suggested that closing loopholes would keep the rich from benefiting from top-end personal tax cuts, a preposterous falsehood.

The second priority will be rolling back the “complications” of Dodd-Frank financial reform. Trump is brandishing the threat of 35 percent tariffs on companies who ship jobs abroad, but his nominee for Commerce Secretary, billionaire investor Wilbur Ross, noted “tariffs are the last thing…part of the negotiation. The real thing is going to be to increase American exports,” echoing every American president since Clinton.

Representative Tom Price, the anti-abortion zealot nominated to head the Department of Health and Human Services, will work with House Speaker Paul Ryan to repeal Obamacare. The plan now is repeal and delay—repealing the reform on a date certain three or so years from now, while working out the “replacement” in the meantime. With Trump and the Republican Congress intent on slashing taxes and raising military spending, the resulting deficits will be used justify an attack on Medicaid and Medicare as part of “reform.” In control of the Congress and the White House, Republicans will push to roll back and privatize basic pieces of the safety net.

Progressives will necessarily find themselves embattled on many fronts. Deportations will ramp up. Anti-Muslim rhetoric will fuel increased surveillance and restriction. Law-and-order rhetoric and brutal stop-and-frisk policies will unleash harsh reprisal against Black Lives Matter demonstrators. Voter-suppression efforts will find a home in the Department of Justice. Unions—particularly public-employee unions—will be assailed from the start.

Solidarity will be vital for activists who are targeted, communities threatened, families torn apart by deportations or worse.

To expose the bait-and-switch on the economy, it will be vital to follow the money, and expose the corruptions and the lies. Challenging Trump’s appointments will provide the first opportunity to pierce the veil.

Fierce opposition is needed, not simply defense. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi claimed, “I don’t think people want a new direction.” That is wrong. The question is: What side are you on? Who will fight for changes that make this economy work for working people? More of the same is not an answer.

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Defending Barack Obama’s trade policy against Trump’s “protectionism” won’t get the job done. Criticizing Trump for running up deficits, in contrast to Obama’s austerity, is a sucker’s game. Progressives can’t defer to cautious leaders calling for least-common-denominator unity. They have to put forth bold reform ideas to contrast with Trump’s depredations. Bernie Sanders offered a decent example, calling Trump out on outsourcing, while putting forth a bill that would punish companies for moving jobs abroad, not allowing them to extort subsidies for staying here.

But ultimately this debate won’t be decided in Washington but across the country among mobilized citizens.

For example, Fight for $15 can drive reform at the state and local level. People will swarm congressional meetings to protect Social Security or Medicare. They must do the same to stop another round of tax giveaways to corporations and the rich that drain the public purse and add to inequality.

Trump can fool many of the people for some of time. He inherits an economy with low unemployment and wages beginning to stir. If he manages to get a major infrastructure program out of this Congress, the jobs created could help tighten labor markets enough to begin to lift wages. He can stoke his base with race-baiting politics and by taunting the establishment’s delicacies (such as taking the call from the prime minister of Taiwan).

But his show will get stale over time, particularly if the rip-offs are exposed, the divisive racial and gender politics are confronted, and working families learn that the crony capitalists on the inside are cleaning up while they are getting stiffed. Trump is a wily and experienced confidence man, but selling his remedy won’t be easy once people realize it’s the same old failed brew.

Just like the guy that bragged about the great deal they got on a car, when the car turns out to be a lemon, Trump voters will be in denial for a while.

It is amazing that this flim-flam artist can pretend to be Robin hood, but when he takes off his mask, is the sheriff of Nottingham.

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Julie Stroevesays:

December 8, 2016 at 11:42 am

let's use The Donald's gift for adjectives; call him the Flip-Flopper in Chief. I can't quite get my head around Gary's libertarian (?) fear of The Other. I'd rather be assured by the Democratic Party and its elite establishment power structure that it will hold true to a 30-year blue state strategy to win elections in every state in every district. We can't win elections by being Republican-lite. Not now. Not ever.

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Gary Greensays:

December 7, 2016 at 6:17 pm

Thanks for a organizing a fine list of the negative future Americans who voted for Trump and those who did not vote at all bought in the last election. But merely identifying the hole we are in does not address what I think is the way out of the hole. My guiding view is that if the Democrats can understand why they have been swamped in every recent election where their candidate was not a rock star (e.g., Obama), they will wander in the desert a long time. One thing is now clear: The voters no longer care about the issues Democrats have been selling, mainly due to the success we have had in achieving progress. The voters care about only two things:

1. WHAT CONCRETE, IMMEDIATE PLAN DOES THE HAVE TO KEEP CITIZENS SAFE?
Citizens (meaning voters and those who will vote) have been saturated for almost 20 years in a vat filled with swirling, unrelenting fear of the potential annihilation of their loved ones from an international gang of vicious, bloodthirsty, murderers. Every time they see a metal detector or watch cable news reporting of an incident of terror, the fear is energized. Citizens are not privy to top secret Homeland Security or NSA briefings, and the static coming from the media is not illuminating. Therefore, the Citizens must form their own conclusions. Enough of the Citizens to sway an election believe that the vicious, bloodthirsty, murderers are inspired by the Koran. The Citizens also believe that the perps cannot be identified in advance. Because Islam is a world-wide religion, while the leaders of sects are in the Middle East, the vicious, bloodthirsty, murderers who carry out their orders to kill could live anywhere. A significant number of Citizens believe also that the vicious, bloodthirsty, murderers are unpersuadable by facts, threats, promises, bribes, tradeoffs and other things usually effective in negotiations. This is not like a criminal kidnapping where a ransom is demanded. Instead, nothing is demanded, and nothing could be expected to assuage the vicious, bloodthirsty, murderers.

These scared Citizens cannot flee or fight because the world is infested with the vicious, bloodthirsty, murderers like a slum is infested with roaches. In neither instance can you expect to eradicate the blight by eliminating what you see today since a swarm of new vermin is born every minute to serve as future replacements.

In the last election, Democrats had no plan. Instead, they responded to the express and implied pleas for protection from what many Citizens viewed as real threats from the vicious, bloodthirsty, murderers with bromides about how loyal most Muslim Americans are, and that only a tiny sliver of Muslims are terrorists. Well, only a tiny sliver of the population would get polio, but everyone got vaccinated.

The Democrats must be able to say they have on the shelf, ready for prime time, a Salk Vaccine type of remedy for the murderers. (I do not know what that plan might be, but I do know that Democrats have never even suggested remedy and Democrats need one). By contrast, Trump announced he would ban new immigration of Muslims, would consider internment camps, would build a wall to keep out criminals, would not accept Syrian refugees and expressed belligerence toward Muslims. All were toxic to our Constitution and the Lazarus poem on the Statue of Liberty. I do not advocate adopting they type of blasphemy to our national creed associated with trump. But surely Democratic candidates can devise a plan that sounds effective, strong, bold and kick-ass. If not, Democrats will not recover because international terrorism has elevated the lizard brain in a wide and growing segment of Americans; and their fight or flight instinct is dominating and overriding their intelligent weighing of the issues.

2. DEMOCRATS NEED TO REVIVE THEIR ROLE OF BEING THE SERVANTS OF THE PEOPLE AT THE LOCAL, STATE AND FEDERAL LEVEL FOR DAY-TO-DAY GOVERNMENTAL PROBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES THAT CONFRONT ORDINARY CITIZENS.

Government intrudes on our lives for good and evil, and sometimes, mistakes are made in Washington, or in state or municipal governments that hurt a local Citizen. These are the kinds of problems companies and rich donors to the Democratic Party get fixed with a phone call. When the Citizens ask for help at the agencies, the bureaucrats and civil servants have no power to nip problems in the bud, or do not want to exert themselves. Citizens facing problems should be sold, conditioned and taught to call a Democratic Party official (i.e., a politician) who would take action in a sincere effort to help. Obviously, in most cases, the Democratic politician will be unable to provide a complete remedy, but at a minimum the Democratic Party could offer the Citizen information, guidance and suggestions. The Citizens should know though that regardless of whether a remedy is possible or achieved, the Democratic Party is there to serve.

I am not discounting the success Democrats have had marketing through liberal ideology, interest group pandering and ethnic politics over the years. But voters swayed by those pitches are already customers, and the last election proved Trump was able to peel them off by a combination of exploiting fear of vicious, bloodthirsty, murderers, and promising selfish economic gain to the individual voters. Democrats should look at what it will take to win back the non-ideological voters who are oblivious to, or do not have faith government can handle the larger, philosophical themes that separate Democrats from the other contenders.

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Walter Pewensays:

December 7, 2016 at 4:52 pm

This brings up two themes that have been present all along yet most people, even on the Left, have barely discussed them.
Trump's rise is uncannily like Reagan's yet why don't people address it? Reagan was mastering the media, not really much solid, when he first got in. The first presidency of television and print media that had the President mouthing platitudes while behind the scene something different might actually be going on. No matter. Enough Americans bought into the Reagan "brand" to make it seem real. Even moderates, and some liberals, found themselves at times agreeing with stuff he said when in fact they knew better. Coincidentally. the 1980's gave rise to marketing departments taking on huge importance all across the spectrum of America. Marketing everything, nothing untouched. Trump is just the logical wrap up of all of this energy. Thirty years of it and many people literally don't know reality from "The Apprentice." The other thing is how most of the media has just been playing along in Trump's dance. Traits of his that could have been revealed and discussed six months ago were held back, as if mainstream media and others had little secrets that people on their own couldn't figure out. If you did not figure out this nobody was going to do bait and switch some time ago, I'd suggest truly you were born yesterday.